


Heavy is the Head

by damngayboys



Category: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018)
Genre: Angst, Sadness, break-up, five times one time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 11:45:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17385890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damngayboys/pseuds/damngayboys
Summary: They know it’s happening, to some degree, but it’s such a subtle decline that Peter isn’t even sure exactly how it happens until his first summer alone, months after they finally give in, when he finally gets to sit down and work through his thoughts alone. For the most part, it’s a tangled nest of little failings and losses that are near impossible to pinpoint. Still, if he had to find the most important points, the instances when things truly became broken beyond repair, Peter thinks he could.----The end of their relationship, as told by Peter. Title from Cold is the Heart by the Oh Hellos.





	Heavy is the Head

It’s funny. For all that the beginning of their relationship was a series of gestures and moments straight out of a rom-com, the end of their relationship is a slow, sliding demise. They know it’s happening, to some degree, but it’s such a subtle decline that Peter isn’t even sure exactly how it happens until his first summer alone, months after they finally give in, when he finally gets to sit down and work through his thoughts alone. For the most part, it’s a tangled nest of little failings and losses that are near impossible to pinpoint. Still, if he had to find the most important points, the instances when things truly became broken beyond repair, Peter thinks he could. It would go something like this -

* * *

They pledge to help eachother pack, when it comes time to move away to college. It’s Margot’s suggestion, strangely enough. She still doesn’t agree with their decision to stay together after graduation, and she makes sure it’s known - but the worst of that ended right before they flew out for Korea, in one of the highest points of their summer. Peter had been tormented over gaining Margot’s favor, doing everything he could to get into her good graces both for Lara Jean’s sake and for his own. She was about to have a direct pipeline into his girl’s mind for a month, while he was going to be relegated to a Skype call a few times a week. That meant he’d been nothing but a perfect gentleman with Margot, even taking her side over Lara Jean’s in all the petty sister squabbles he was around for. He even pretended not to hear when Margot reminded her of how well leaving Josh had ended up for them both, how their mom had clearly been onto something when she said never to go to college with a boyfriend. Then Lara Jean, tucked into his side and sniffling over The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, of all thing, admitted in a quiet, teary voice that Margot’s comments about their mom’s advice were starting to make her feel like she was letting her mom and her sister down. And that was that, for Peter. Standing in the airport the next day, he pulled Margot aside for a private conversation, and asked if she’d forgive herself if she accidentally, truly, hurt her little sister. He didn’t think so. After a moment’s silence, Margot admitted that she didn’t think so either. From that point on, it was relatively benign, and she even advised them that working up to the goodbye together might take some of the sting out of the actual moment.  
With a few notable exceptions, Lara Jean almost never questioned her sister’s heart-felt wisdom, this particular piece of advice was one she was more than happy to follow.

  
Peter didn’t need that much reason to agree. All he needed (really, all he ever needed) was an excuse to spend more time with his girlfriend.

  
When it’s Lara Jean’s turn to help him pack, she’s flawless, as ever. She shows up in his doorway that Sunday morning bearing not only a batch of cookies that get his mouth watering from a mile away but two headsets, which she swears are the key to every successful cleaning, packing, and general cleansing.

  
The signs that this is getting to her are few and far between, but they’re there. Her eyes are rimmed in pink, with tiny little streaks down her cheeks, and that alone would’ve been enough for Peter to throw away the whole effort and spend the entire afternoon curled up watching stupid 80s rom-coms with her in his arms. Lara Jean has an incredible will, however, and with a shake of her shoulders and one final wipe of her pinkened nose, sets herself into trying to find a way to link up both pairs of headphones to one phone, to keep their music in sync.

  
An hour’s fiddling and searching and calling up Apple Support makes no progress into that particular venture, and that too would’ve been enough for Peter to call it, but she just hands him her phone and slips his from the pocket of his hoodie, which she’d commandeered about halfway into a very frustrating call with Apple support. “It’ll be fun. I’ll control your music and you’ll control mine, and this way neither of us can get distracted fiddling with our phones for too long.” As if she didn’t know the passcode to his (her name) and she bothered locking hers (with Kitty’s lack of boundaries and near scary know how, it was inevitable she’d get in anyway.) As if Peter wouldn’t instantly give in if she pouted for her phone back - as if there was anything on that Earth he wouldn’t give her, if he thought it would make her smile. He doesn’t say that, though. What he does do was pick up the headphones and settle them over her ears, filling her world with the sounds of Heath Ledger’s crooning. She had always loved Ten Things I Hate About You.

  
The amazing thing is, it works. Once Peter is set up with his own headphones, they settle into the work remarkably fast, only pausing for little moments of goofing between them. She finds a baby picture and makes cooing faces at him from across the room. He finds the baseball glove his dad bought him a lifetime ago, and the music in the background surreptitiously slips from last summer’s hits into the soundtrack of the newest Spiderman movie, putting a little smile on his lips despite his discovery.

  
At some point, the Spiderman soundtrack gives way to a song Peter doesn’t even begin to recognize, something soft and mournful that prompts him to shift one of the headphones off his ear for the first time. “Going indie on me, Covey?” He tries to play it off, but the lyrics are near painful to hear, and the idea that she had ever felt how this song sounded had his chest twisting up.

  
“Huh?” She’s halfway through his nightstand drawer, mind clearly somewhere far off, when she finally looks at his phone. “Oh, Sunflower. I used to love that, guess my movie-soundtrack tastes kind of bled into your tunes?” The way she’s worrying her lower lip makes it exceedingly obvious that she too understands the reminder in the lyrics of a time they both tried to ignore. “I can-” She cuts herself off, jerking to turn the music off, and he’s shaking his head before he really understands why.

  
“No, hey. I wasn’t complaining. It’s beautiful. Sad, but. You know. Good sad? Sometimes you need to get a little slow, why not.” She doesn’t particularly look like she buys it, but she acquiesces, tucking his phone back into the hoodie after a few seconds. The moment passes, and they settle back in, slowly.

  
Their next break is lunch. They feast upon adorably packed wax-paper sandwiches, despite the fact that Peter had a kitchen right below their feet - made with love, she says, and who is he to argue that? There’s only a little bit of work left to do when they get back to it, so Peter doesn’t feel too bad when he derails the efforts once again, queueing up some Ed Sheeran for her and starting an impromptu slow dance in the middle of his half-packed-up childhood bedroom, spins and all. It’s funny, swaying there when he’s being serenaded instead by the beats of Drake’s latest hits, and this only seems to occur to Lara Jean when she’s tucked into his chest, close enough to catch the closing notes of Hotline Bling. She scrambles to change it, but instead he catches her hands, laughing the full, hearty kind of laugh that’s been harder and harder to come by as moving day encroached. “No, no. Leave it. Nothing more romantic than this. I’m like modern Fred Astaire, aren’t I Covey?” And then he’s launching into his best approximation of Drake’s moves, and she’s giggling just as hard, and they get tangled up in their laughter until they’re both flopped on his bed, breathless and beaming.

  
“I think the headphone trick only works when you’re not working with a total dork.” Lara Jean teases, poking at his side.

  
“Au contraire, beautiful. It works best when you’re working with a total dork. That’s why I invited you.” And that’s the start of a tickle fight he, naturally, dominates.

  
Eventually, they do get back to work, and he zips his suitcase while she tapes the last box and they both pretend that the finality of the moment isn’t crashing into them like waves. “Thank you,” he says, clearing his throat and pulling his headphones down around his neck. The child in him wants to unpack every box and refuse to leave. But change now isn’t as scary as it used to be, even if it’s still pretty painful. One thing about change was the same, though. It was every bit as inevitable.

  
Peter thinks he can come to terms with that. Maybe.

  
When it’s time for him to go over to Lara Jean’s and help pack her up, he’s nowhere near as helpful.

  
He starts off on the right foot, showing up bright and early with donuts and coffee drinks, but it quickly devolves from there. The headphones aren’t working their magic, and every few minutes he stops to look at something or other and gets caught up in remembering. A ticket stub from their first movie together. The collection of notes he’d written her when it was all just pretend, the letter she’d written when they stumbled into it being so much more. The journal she’d apparently kept that whole year - that alone took up an hour, with Peter splayed out on the bed leafing through the pages while she watched from her desk. By the time their stomachs were both growling for lunch, they’d sorted through all of one dresser drawer. Margot came in with the announcement that they’d be ordering pizza, and the disbelieving look on her face said it all - and then Lara Jean did, too.

  
“Peter. We’ve got to get this under control. Promise you’ll focus up when we’re done eating? I don’t have time left to fuss around anymore.” She sat on the bed beside him, the softest of smiles still gracing her lips, and he finally sat up.

  
“C’mon, Lara Jean. It’s not like you’re shipping out tomorrow, there’s more than enough time for us to - “

  
“Promise, Peter.” Her words were stubborn as ever, but she was worrying her lower lip between her teeth, and there was really only one answer he could pick.

  
“Hey, hey. Course. I promise.” And he really did think he meant it.

  
That should’ve been the end of it. After that, he should’ve become the perfect packing assistant, just as Lara Jean had done for him. And he tried, for a while, but every picture he found stirred up memories, or raised questions about the things he’d missed while he’d been off with the wrong girl, and every memory just made the voice in the back of his head, the one telling him he was going to lose the most amazing thing in his life and here he was helping ship her off like an idiot, louder in volume. Usually, he could control it. In that moment, however, it was controlling him, and he knew it.

  
Still, he tried to convince himself it wasn’t that bad. So what if he sparked conversations over every little knick knack? So what if he brought up old debates just to distract her from the task at hand? And if he pulled her against him, clouding the objective with kisses and soft touches, was that really him breaking his promise, or was it just average teenage boy behavior?

  
They were still curled up on her bed when Lara Jean looked out the window and saw that the sky had gone dark.

  
“Oh my god. Oh my god, it’s eight at night, isn’t it. It’s eight and we’ve gotten nothing done and we should’ve been done hours ago. This is a mess. I am a mess, this is -” She was off the bed and on her feet in an instant.

  
“Woah, woah, w-w-w-w-w-woah. Lara Jean, breathe, hey, it’s just packing.” He pulled himself up off the mattress just an instant later, trying to slow her as she paced across the room and looked exceedingly like her sister while doing it. “Hey.” He finally caught her, hands on her hips and a not nearly apologetic enough smile on his lips. “It’s okay. It’s just packing. I didn’t mean to slow us down this much, it’s just - hard. Knowing I’m sending my best girl away.”

  
“Hard?” Her voice filled up with disbelief, and Peter realized with a sinking feeling in his stomach that he’d made a very grave misstep somewhere, even if he wasn’t entirely sure where. “Of course it’s hard! You think it wasn’t hard for me, sending you off, Peter Kavinsky? But I did it! Because it’s what we agreed on, and it’s what’s best for you, you, you - dumb boy!” He couldn’t help it. The words made him chuckle, though the sentiment wasn’t all that amusing, and neither were the two (tiny) palms laid flat on his chest, pushing him away. “Get out. Get out, if you can’t help me my sisters will. Or I’ll - I’ll do it alone, just. Go.” Her voice was cracking and her eyes were already watering up, but she held her ground.

  
“Lara Jean, wait.” He should’ve known better. Going off to college was such a sensitive area between them. He’d already almost lost her over the upcoming distance and his reaction, he should’ve handled this better -

  
“Go!” One more press against his chest and then even that connection between them broke as she lifted her hand away to wipe at her nose. Then she turned her back, arms wrapped around herself, and he stepped forward, never more intent on fixing something until that moment. His hand made it to her shoulder, and he was so close to having her back, he could feel it...

  
Then a voice sounded behind him, and he stopped cold in his tracks. “She said to leave, Peter.” Dr.Covey. Who else? The sound of a father geared up to protect his daughter was enough to stop any man’s heart mid-pump.

  
“Lara Jean.” His own voice cracked then, coming out as barely a whisper but desperate as could be.

  
“Now, Peter.” Dr.Covey wasn’t budging, and Lara Jean wasn’t turning around. He swallowed, thick and tough, but his hand left her shoulder, and he went, rationalizing the whole way.

It wasn’t that bad of a fight. He’d made bigger mistakes before. They’d move past this, they were both just tired, and stressed. Packing for college was a lot for anyone. They’d be fine.

  
He climbed into his car. Even from the corner, the man in his rear view mirror looked like an ass. An ass who’d just made a very big mistake, one he didn’t know yet how to solve. But he turned the key in the ignition. They’d be fine by morning.

  
And they were, sort of.

  
But knowing then what he knew now, Peter would have never settled for sort of. He never would have even driven away.

* * *

Peter always knew that college would be an adjustment. To some degree, every senior did. They’d go from being the Kings and Queens of the Halls to stumbling around, not knowing where anything was and terrified of the bigger kids on campus. Or - not kids, he figured. He was dealing with adults now, grown men and women who knew what they were doing with their lives, had careers and responsibilities, and most certainly, beyond all doubt, couldn't care less that he was cool in high school.

  
Chris used to call him the king of the cafeteria crowd, and he’d laughed. It wasn’t like he was actually high school royalty. He just happened to have a lot of friends. No one actually cared all that much.

  
At least, that’s what he thought, until he moved to a place where people really didn’t care. At UVA, he wasn’t Kavinsky, and the fact that he’d once been was irrelevant. Even on the field, once place he’d always been so certain of himself, he was just a freshman. He might’ve shown potential, but he couldn’t contend with the real stars of the team, and they all knew it.

  
It’s not like he needed to rule the roost. Really. He was fine taking a backseat. It was just a little bit of an adjustment. He’d get there.

  
There were just some growing pains. Like when he failed a play the rest of the team had mastered. Or his roommates were asked to come to some frat party and he wasn’t. Or when he got a whopping 60 on his latest math exam and no one cared enough to pull him aside and offer extra help. Individually, it was all livable.

  
But put together, one whammy after another, all packed up in the course of a single day, and Peter dropped to his bed desperate for a time when people looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky.

  
There was one person who still did, he knew. One brilliant, beautiful person, who was succeeding at college in all the ways he wasn’t. Someone who had made fast friends in the Korean Student Association, and was already practically president of the Baking Club. Lara Jean deserved it. She’d been so overlooked at Adler High. Peter would never begrudge her the recognition she was receiving now. It’s not like it could change anything between them.

  
It couldn’t. She loved him for more than Kavinsky, and he knew that. It just...wouldn’t hurt to hear.

  
By the phone’s fourth ring, he was worried. She always picked up the phone by the third, she was good like that. Even if she was busy, she’d grab it and answer just long enough to explain that she couldn’t talk, and promise to call back once things on her end settled down. He never loved it, when the call went that way, but by the sixth ring, he was wishing for that much, just to hear her voice.

  
She didn’t pick up.

  
It only took a minute of puttering for Peter to text. “Hey, do you have a minute? It’s been a rough day...could really use some time with my girl.” There. Good enough. It wasn’t as though Lara Jean would ever left him on read.

  
Until she did. Ten minutes after his message, the line turned to seen, and a brief instance of the infamous three grey dots popped up before disappearing and leaving Peter without a word. It wasn’t long after that that he called again, and this time, by the fourth ring, he was just getting angry.

  
Late into the night, he finally got word back. Lara Jean was breathless, and apologetic, rambling her way through an explanation of some last-minute something, and he chuckled and nodded and insisted it didn’t matter that much, that it was fine.

  
But the damage was already done.

* * *

 Like most relationships, the end of theirs is at least a little bit facilitated by alcohol.

  
Alcohol and what Peter’s frat brothers would so eloquently dub daddy issues.

  
Peter isn’t delusional, on this front. He knows his dad is an immense sore spot for him, and he knows just as well that he’s not the best at dealing with that. Or he wasn’t, before Lara Jean came into the picture, and started gently prodding him to at least try to reconnect - for his sake, not his dads.

  
She’d pulled back, after graduation. In the odd role reversal, he’d been the one tucked into her, head hidden in the crook of her neck when Peter admitted, quiet as a mouse, that seeing his empty seat (though it had been for a relatively decent reason, he learned later) had felt like a slap across the face. Lara Jean had offered, every bit the protective girlfriend, to get up right that second and go fight his dad - and wasn’t that a mental picture, little Lara Jean with her braids and floral blouses standing up to --- Kavinsky, who stood as tall as his son and had once been a football star. The image, along with the idea that Lara Jean cared enough to offer, had Peter smiling against her skin and pulling her impossibly closer. No, he wouldn’t let her go fight his dad. But even Peter couldn’t stop Lara Jean from holding an epic grudge. Kitty had gotten it from someone, he realized. Lara Jean was just a little bit more reticent, only whipping it out when someone had done the truly unforgivable. Like hurting her man.

  
As promised, she held strong in her anger. It wasn’t until Peter admitted to her that he thought maybe it was time to give him one last chance that she said a word about the matter, and even then it was just to promise that she’d be by his side the whole time.

  
He’d really picked the perfect girl, hadn’t he.

  
They arranged the meeting, a dinner between the three of them during Lara Jean’s next visit up to UVA. Peter barely slept the night before, and in turn kept Lara Jean up, talking on the phone until he caught the beginnings of sunrise climbing over the horizon. If anyone should be nervous, really, it should be his father. He was the one with a lifetime of disappointments to make up for. He was the one who’d missed his own son’s graduation. He was the one who had walked out on his family.

  
Peter was still too nervous to eat the entire day leading up to it. Even Lara Jean’s cupcakes, which had gotten even better since she’d started spending so much time with the baking club, weren’t enough to coax him into eating.

  
He’s all gatorade and coffee by the time he finally sits down in the restaurant, and he’s distracted enough that Lara Jean is the one who orders wine and bread for the table - Lara Jean, who drinks about as often as a solar eclipse. The first glass goes by quickly enough, Peter’s eyes more attached to his watch than the lowering level in his wine. The second and third go by in a similar manner, though at some point his eyes leave the watch and move to the empty seat at the table.

  
His dad is more than half an hour late when Lara Jean’s hand comes to rest on top of his, making him pause as he went to lift the glass to his lips once more. She’s long since switched to water. “You should have a roll, Peter. Eat something.” Her voice isn’t lecturing. It’s nurturing, if anything, but if ruffles his feathers nonetheless.

  
“I’m fine. We can’t all be taken down by a single pour, Covey. That’s all you.” He chuckles, playing it off as warmth. She doesn’t seem particularly convinced, but she bites her lower lip and pulls her hand back. The table is silent as he takes his drink, and he knows she’s every inch as aware of the glaringly empty seat.

  
The bottle is empty when he finally stands up, cutting through the silence and declaring it time that they leave. “He’s not coming.” She’s startled, maybe by the way he almost knocked his chair over in the action. “Let’s go, Covey. No reason to waste our night waiting on someone who’ll never show up.”

  
“Peter…” Lara Jean speaks, and it’s hesitant, quiet. “Did he - did he say anything?”

  
“You think I’d be sitting here making an ass out of myself if he had?” She’s not the one he’s angry at. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Peter knows that. But she’s in front of him, and that makes it so much easier.

  
“I’m sorry.” She finally stands, looking down at her purse before pulling her gaze up to Peter’s eyes. They’re clouded, and he’s mostly sure she’s expecting to find tears in them. He doesn’t have any tears left to waste on that man, and he says as much before striding away, not bothering to check if she’s following behind them.

  
He has enough sense not to try to drive himself back, which leaves him standing in front of the restaurant, getting ever more frustrated as he waits for her to join him. What’s taking her so long?  
When she finally does come out, she’s fiddling with the snap of her bag, lips pursed up and a little wrinkle between her eyebrows as she looks up to him. “Had to find our waiter,” she explains, “settle the tab.” On a normal day, Peter would be ducking his head and offering up a sheepish apology for leaving so abruptly and leaving that in her hands. Today, he just huffs.

  
“Right.” He turns then, voice terse, looking out into the dark parking lot and trying fruitlessly to remember where they’d parked.

  
“Hey.” Her hand is small where it rests on his arm, trying to coax him into turning around. “Are you alright?”

  
He shouldn’t have had the last three glasses of wine. “No, I’m not fucking alright, Covey.” He shakes his shoulder, hard, and her hand falls off of him like she’s been burned.

  
“You need to eat something,” she resolves, “soak up some of the wine. You’ll feel more like yourself.” And who is she kidding? He feels exactly like himself - like the pathetic kid who sits around, waiting for his daddy to start acting like a hero again. The kid who is constantly disappointed, the kid who feels like a six year old trapped in a man’s body.

  
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Just take me home.” It’s harsh. He knows it’s harsh. That doesn’t make it feel any less true.

  
“I don’t want to just leave you like this. Let’s sit, okay? We can talk. I know you’re angry, and you’re allowed to be.” She’s pleading, and in the corner of his eye Peter can see her reaching for his hand this time.

  
He shoves it into his pocket. “I don’t need your permission to be pissed!”

  
“That’s not - that’s not what I meant.” She stammers.

  
“I don’t need your permission to do anything. This is your fault in the first place.” He’s crossed a line.

  
“This is my fault?” She’s incredulous.

  
“Of course it’s your fault.” He can see it in her eyes, the way the soft desperation hardens. She pulls herself a little taller, refusing to be walked over, and in a strange way, he’s proud. His girl always was a fighter. But Peter wasn’t about to pull punches, not now. The time for that, and his his capability to, had disappeared somewhere around his fifth glass. “This never would’ve happened if you weren’t always pushing me to forgive him. If you weren’t so selfish. If you could just live with the fact that your boyfriend isn’t some stupid hero from one of your ridiculous books. I’m never going to fit into that fucking box, Lara Jean, I’m fucked up. My family is screwed. You need to get over it. Or leave.”

  
Of all the breaking points in their relationship, this might be the single most defined. He can see the cracks on her faces, even as she hardens her features and pulls back. “I’ll go get the car. You need to cool off.”

  
He’s silent, though the fogged up voice in the back of his head is telling him he’s just made a grave mistake, and is losing his chance to fix it. Lara Jean casts him one more look, and walks away.  
When she pulls up the car, still looking just a little bit uncertain behind the wheel, his normal comforts and encouragements are nowhere to be found. He’s pretty sure they’re both better off if he just keeps his mouth shut for now. The rational part of him has no hands on the wheel right now, and that means that nothing good is going to come from him.

  
He’s just as quiet when she parks, and even when she presses the keys into his palm. At least by then, he has the decency to look half-ashamed of himself. The other half is still burning with anger. When he goes to walk toward the dorm where they’re both supposed to be staying the night, and she doesn’t follow, he understands why...but Christ, does it hurt.

  
“I think I should head home. Or - I mean. Back to UNC. There are finals coming up, and I don’t really think I can deal with this, right now?” It still stings that she thinks of home as that school, now. Peter thinks he remembers a time when it was in each other’s arms.

  
But he returns with silence.

  
“Right, um. I’ll text you, when I get there.” He’d made her promise as much, after tucking her into his arms and examining her head to toe, searching for bumps and bruises, at the revelation that she’d driven herself all the way up there.

  
It’s not the first time in their relationship that they don’t say goodbye with an I love you attached, but it’s the first time that neither of them say goodbye, and the silence is screaming by the time Lara Jean pulls out of the lot.

* * *

The winter break that immediately follows the dinner with his father - or lack thereof - is the coldest Peter has ever lived through. In temperature, it’s average. Warmer than usual, even, and he can already imagine Kitty’s disapproving notes on climate change and modern politics when he wakes up to a green Christmas. She’s been more strong minded than ever, growing up so much in the time that Peter and Lara Jean have been off at college, and the idea of sitting around a Christmas dinner and hearing her opinions on their senator puts a grin on his face before Christmas itself has a chance to.

  
It faded almost immediately when he remembers that he won’t be spending Christmas dinner with the Covey’s. Months ago, it had been planned. Assumed, really, by all of them, that there was nothing that could keep them apart on Christmas day. But that had been before; before they understood just what distance meant. Before Peter crossed lines he still wasn’t sure how to come back rom. Before he let her get into that car and drive away.

  
They’d also planned their own Christmas celebrations, to make up for having to miss so many of the classic ones. Both families had trees up by the time their schools let out, the Christmas Cookie Bonanza had come and gone. It had been Peter’s idea to replace that with a Hallmark movie marathon and their own bake-off, as though there would be any competition.

  
Both dates had been pencilled into their calendar long before Thanksgiving. Both dates had come and gone without a word between them about it. They hadn’t shared so much as a phone call since they both got out of school, just the occasional terse text and the promise to sit down and talk it out sometime soon.

  
He pushes the thought aside, determined to not spend his Christmas silent, and sulky, the way he’s been acting since they first came to pick him up from school. He’d already spent the greater part of Christmas break locked away in his room, even indulging his more melodramatic side with that one Elvis song - Blue Christmas. It felt fitting, considering the circumstances. He’s had a rough year, and yeah, he might be doomed to a blue Christmas, but he’s grown enough to see that it’s no excuse to ruin his brothers holiday.

  
Sitting down on the couch, watching Owen dole out the Christmas presents from his seat on the floor, is the most like himself Peter’s felt in months. He recognizes the man that puts his family before himself on days like this, the man that spent hours over the summer finding the perfect Christmas gift for his mom, so much more than he recognizes the angry kid who barely bothered to throw the bracelet into a gift bag. The most difficult part of the day is trying to come to terms with the fact that they were both part of him.

  
His efforts don’t go entirely unnoticed. Once the festivities die down, Owen drops down beside Peter on the couch, grabbing a controller and steadfastly refusing to look at his brother. “Got your head on straight yet?”

  
Without even really thinking about it, Peter runs a hand through his hair, giving a sheepish grin in conjunction. “Something like that.”

  
“Good, cause. Uh. I could use some advice?” Owen hesitates, side eyeing his brother for an instant. “Not that I need you for girl advice. Or that I think you’re some kind of master at this, because I saw how it went down with Genevieve, just. You’re good with Covey girls.”

  
Peter wasn’t sure that was so true anymore, but it didn’t seem like it would be all that helpful to tell Owen that yet. “Covey girls?” He asks instead, raising a brow. “Am I about to have to compete for my girl again? Are you falling for that baking?”

  
“Everyone’s a little bit in love with that baking.” Peter had to give him that one. It was a miracle Lara Jean had been single long enough for him to step in, and he knew it. All it would’ve taken was her bringing in a batch of cookies for a class Christmas party, and his chances with her would’ve gone up in smoke. “But I’m not after Lara Jean. She’s like my sister.”

  
“Point taken.” Peter swallows then, remembering a time when Lara Jean had chastised him for getting too close to Kitty. It would hurt her, when their fake relationship ended. Now, that wasn't exactly a top concern. They never intended for this, their very, sometimes painfully real relationship, to end. But maybe it was good that college had put some distance between their families and their relationships. The thought made his stomach turn. “Margot, then? You’re into older women? I can respect that.”

  
Owen is squirming in his seat, but Peter figures it’s his right as an older brother to put him through the wringer, at least a little. “Dick. You know who I’m talking about!”

  
“If it’s not Margot and it’s not my Lara Jean…” Peter trails off, pretending to contemplate it. His act is cut off when he has to narrowly dodge a full body tackle, and he manages to hit the ground anyway. “Alright, alright.” He throws a lazy kick from his newfound place on the ground. “So you’re into Kitty?”

  
“Not that I think it could ever happen.” Owen’s just a fraction quieter when he says that, and Peter pulls himself up onto his elbows to look at him. “Kitty’s so…” He gestures vaguely, a flailing motion that on any other day Peter never would’ve let him live down. But it’s Christmas, and Peter is feeling giving.

  
“She’s a Covey,” he nods.

  
“And I’m…” A Kavinsky, Peter fills in silently, remembering a time when that really meant something to him. He’d personally defined the name, hadn’t he, until he was as much Kavinsky as he was Peter? But he hadn’t left all that much room for Owen to figure out his version of being a Kavinsky.

  
“You’re a little bad ass. Just not in the traditional way.” Peter tries his best, but even he’s not sure what what he’s saying means.

  
“Right. A non-traditional badass who can’t get any girl, much less Kitty Song-Covey.” Owen drops back against the couch, and Peter pulls himself up beside him.

  
“I’ve been there,” he admits. “I had the worst crush on Lara Jean in seventh grade. And again, in freshman year. Even when I had Gen, who was supposed to be the hottest girl in school.”

  
Owen only pulls open one eye to glance over at him, but it’s enough. “Really?”

  
“Really. And honestly?” Peter’s voice lowers conspiratorially, as though what he’s about to say is some big secret. “I’m still pretty gone for her now.”

  
Owen’s laughter breaks through the teenage fog of hopelessness in a brilliant way, and Peter is just a little proud of himself over it. “What is it about Covey girls?”

  
He shrugs, close enough to answering the question, but in his mind, he can’t help but mull it over. What was it about Covey girls? Their incredible strength in the face of tragedy? Their unwavering dedication to their sisters? Some other indescribable trait that made them all - even Margot, frustrating at she could be - so unspeakably Covey?

  
It was hard not to fall in love with one of those sisters. It was just something about them. Peter had just been lucky enough that one of them had glanced back his way.

  
They’d only been together for three years, but Peter couldn’t help but think that Christmas without Lara Jean didn’t feel all that much like Christmas.

  
Somewhere across town, she was thinking the same, not that he knew it.

  
But she never called, and neither did he.

* * *

Peter never knows it, but just before he finally ships off to live at UVA, a whopping fifteen minutes away from his home, Owen asks Lara Jean for some of her wisdom. It isn’t the first time it’s happened, but it’s the first time that they’ve gone to these lengths, sitting together in a coffee shop to get away from the Kavinsky family for the afternoon.

  
Sometimes, she feels like the pressure is on, between her and Owen. Peter has always done so beautifully with Kitty, pulling her in until and worming up so close to her heart that she sometimes picked him, her sister’s boyfriend, over her actual sister. Lara Jean admired his ability with Kitty, and really, all kids, but her comfort level was so much more with the seventy and over crowd that it was laughable. She’d never been able to walk the line between being a mother figure and being a big sister for Kitty the way Margot had, and the awkwardness of was like trying to bike a perfectly straight line… through quicksand. That ruled out what should’ve been the ultimate crash course in dealing with kids, and her efforts with Owen were clunky at best.

  
Nothing that couldn’t be smoothed out with a fresh batch of cookies, she’d found. A box was tucked into her backpack, just in case this particular meeting took a downward turn. Judging by the look on his face, Lara Jean was pretty sure she’d made the right call in bringing them. She had never seen Owen look this concerned, and she couldn’t help but imagine the worst. Had he seen Peter do something? Heard something bad? What if this was just the worst proxy-breakup ever concocted?

  
Before her thoughts manage to get too out of hand, Owen straightens up his back and finally speaks. “Lara Jean, your older sister went really far away for college, right?”

  
That’s….unexpected.

  
Her shoulders drop with relief, but her mind is still tangled up in confusion. “Margot? Yeah, she did. She went all the way to Scotland.”

  
Owen pauses then, almost as though he’s regretting even bringing it up. “And you’re still really close, right?” Finally, Lara Jean thinks she might be getting a handle on where this conversation is going.

  
“It’s...different, now. But she’s still my sister. I still love her just as much.” For a second, she worries that she’s about to drastically overstep her bounds. And then she does it anyway. “And Owen - Peter’s not exactly going to Scotland. You’re going to see him a lot more than I see my sister.”

  
The look on Owen’s face is more relief than anything else, that she understood why he’d called her there without him having to come right out and say it. “I know. I know, duh. I’m just...worried. It’s going to be really different, not having my brother there.” Lara Jean has never understood Owen more than in that moment. She’d sat exactly where he was sitting (well. Not exactly. She had never been in danger of becoming a bonafide only child) and stared down the idea of not having her sibling there. It had scared the crap out of her.

  
“It is.” Lara Jean knew she was coming across almost wistful, but she didn’t miss how things used to be. Margot had grown up so much, and so had she - she wouldn’t take that back for the world. It just stung, sometimes, that her big sister hadn’t been there to see her do it. “A lot is going to change. You’re going to do some growing up, even without him there. But that doesn’t mean you have to grow apart, too.”

  
“It’s like this. Everyday is built up with all these little pieces. Moments that maybe don’t mean as much on their own, like...when I came in and my backpack caught on the door and yanked me right back. We laughed about it, but it’s over now, and that’s just one of the moments that made today. When you live with someone, they see a lot of those moments. They’re a part of them.”

  
“You get a day built up of all these little pieces, and that becomes a little piece of you. We’re all just a bunch of little memories and events thrown together. It’s easy to be close to someone when they’re right there, because they’re a part of those pieces, so they become a part of you. But when you’re apart, you have to try harder. You have to include them in the memories, and the stories, and stretch across all that distance to make sure there’s still a part of them in you, and a part of you in them.”

  
“It’s okay to let people go, sometimes. But people you love - people like Peter? You have to try. You both do - you have to make that choice and stick by it. And if you do, nothing, no distance or any other thing, will really pull you apart.”

  
She got too sappy with it. She blew it, she was sure. This was her big moment to impart some sisterly wisdom on Owen, and she failed. When she finally cut herself off, her cheeks quickly pinked, and she ducked her head just a little. At least the advice was true. Not making that effort with Margot when she first went away was one of Lara Jean’s biggest regrets, and she didn’t want to see anyone make the same mistake if she could help it. Owen should’ve seen this coming, really.

  
It isn’t until there are arms wrapped around her waist that Lara Jean got out of her own head enough to actually see Owen’s reaction. The littlest Kavinsky was starting to shoot up, she can’t help but notice, blinking and trying to wrap her mind around the fact that he now stood at least an inch over her. It was funny, how things could slip past someone, if they stopped paying attention for even a minute.

  
“Thank you, Lara Jean. I’m really glad Peter picked you.” And that was that, wasn’t it. They’d picked each other. Now all they had to do was keep picking each other.

* * *

During freshman year, Peter’s left leg bothered him incessantly. After every practice it was screaming, begging for attention, and every time, he had an excuse ready to brush it aside: he’d just pushed a little too hard, it was nothing that would hurt by morning. He’d forgotten to stretch before practice. He’d forgotten to stretch after practice. In reality, they all boiled down to this: He’d lost enough that year, he didn’t need to lose lacrosse too.

  
And so he didn’t. He practiced through the pain and played through the pain, and he won a state championship while he did. He was untouchable. Until two days later, when he tripped walking down the stairs to biology and his leg ended up under him. It was the kind of stupid accident anyone could get up and walk off.

  
But Peter couldn’t get up. He could barely even think. The only thing he really processed was the screaming pain in his leg, and the fact that something had gone very, very wrong. It was the worst pain of his life, and he was helpless to do anything about it. What was worse was that his chance of playing lacrosse again all was all but decimated. He’d lost the single most important thing in his life.  
When his relationship with Lara Jean finally came to its crashing conclusion, Peter felt almost exactly as he had that day, laying in the stairwell, staring up at the ceiling, helpless to do anything but wait for the pain to end. There was only one notable difference: this time, the pain was so much worse.

  
The day before gave no indication that something was wrong. Or maybe that wasn’t quite true - the day before gave every indication that something was wrong, alarms bells sounding at full volume, and they’d become so used to the sound that they both mistook it for background music and moved on. There was no brilliant, beaming smile waiting for Peter when he opened his door to see Lara Jean standing there, just a tired little hum and a muffled yawn that reminded him how hard the drive between them could be.

  
But he pressed a soft kiss on her forehead and stepped aside just the same. It was quiet between them when they sat on his bed, shoulders brushing against each other, and they both pretended the tv was the most interesting thing in the world. He couldn’t say exactly how much time passed like that, in stocky, not quite companionable silence, but by the time one of them spoke again, it was a relief to hear anything that wasn’t the slightly static chatter of the characters on screen. “I miss you.” Lara Jean’s voice sounded quiet, tinged with uncertainty, and with the way her gaze refused to waver from the screen in front of them, Peter almost thought he’d misheard her.

  
“I’m right here, silly.” His tone should’ve come across as teasing, but it fell flat, and he dipped his head down. It wasn’t the right answer, and they both knew it.

  
Lara Jean fell asleep in his arms that night, and Peter revelled in the feeling. It was the first time since she’d arrived that the tension seeped out of her figure and she relaxed into him, every pinched up bit of insecurity slipping away as she melted into him. If he’d known then what morning would bring, he would have never slept. He would have memorized the feeling, would have cataloged every detail and held her as tight as he could, whispering his prayers into her hair so as to not wake her, he would have prayed for just one more chance.

  
The truth was, if he’d known what the morning would bring, everything about that day would be different. When she showed up at his door exhausted, he’d pull her into his arms and rest his cheek on the top of her head. He’d breathe in the scent of her coconut shampoo, beautiful and distinctly Lara Jean, he’d wrap her in one of his jackets hoping that it might start to smell like her, he wouldn’t take a single detail for granted. Screw sitting in front of the tv all day, he’d cook her dinner, he’d dance her through campus like a love-drunk idiot - he’d remember what it meant to be so in love you could get drunk on the joy.

  
He’d play ridiculous music just to hear her laugh at, or he’d play their song and sing it to her before the melody was marred with mourning. He’d keep her up as long as he could, bribing her with her favorite movies or hair braiding or whatever else it took, taking every second of Lara Jean he could get. When she finally drifted off he’d capture the feeling of her falling asleep against his chest, trusting and warm and everything Peter never dreamed he could have, and he’d spend the night holding her, protecting her, keeping a silent vigil and not wasting a single instant of being hers.  
But looking back, if he’d known what was coming, it wouldn’t be that night he changed. He’d go all the way back, back to that first day something between them splintered. He’d go back to the first time he didn’t text her goodnight and he’d pen her a love letter to rival her own, he’d make sure she never ended a day without remembering exactly how grateful Peter was to have her in his days. The first time he missed a facetime session and didn’t apologize, he’d get in the car and drive to ask forgiveness in person, he knew she would forgive him. No grudge between them would go unsolved, no matter who was at fault - he’d tell her the things he hadn’t before. He’d tell her that coming home to her arms made him feel like he could finally breathe again; that when they came together without really coming back to each other, he felt like he might go the rest of his life without another clear breath.Every little step he’d missed, every time some detail slipped past him, he’d go back and work it all over again. And maybe that wouldn’t save them. Maybe they were doomed to fall apart, sometimes these things were. But if he had the chance, he’d try, every time.  
Sometimes, when you get hurt, the pain is so bad that you wonder if it was worth ever trying. Peter didn’t have to wonder, looking back. Lara Jean was worth it. She was worth everything.  
Maybe, if he could, he’d go back even farther than those first failings. Even when he’d loved her his best, there were things that slipped by him. The softness in her eyes when he offered to read aloud for her. The feeling of her fingers mussing through his hair. The way she’d spin for him when she got herself a new dress. The little details were fogged up in his memories, things he hadn’t thought to appreciate, and it killed him, now, looking back and knowing he’d lost them.

  
It came down to this: if he’d known what was going to happen that morning, he would have spent every second of the time he had left with her making her happy. Being happy with her. Remembering what it was to be in love with Lara Jean Covey, and to have her love him, and not taking a single second for granted.

  
But he didn’t know, and it was only a few moments after she drifted off that he did too.

  
Peter wakes up to the ghost of an ache down his left leg, and the obnoxious glare of a new phone notification cutting through the peaceful morning haze. Blinking through the bleariness, he reached for his phone, careful not to move too quickly and jostle Lara Jean.

  
7:00 AM. There was only one person Peter knew that would be willingly texting him at that hour on a Sunday, and it was almost never good news to hear from her, despite his best efforts - Margot.  
A quick runthrough of the last few weeks in his mind gives no clear reason to worry, though, and he pulls open the message with only mild hesitation. He reads it once, then twice, and then once more, and scrolls back up through his old conversations with Margot to make sure there’s nothing he’s missing - but to no avail. He’s still hopelessly confused.

  
“What are you doing to congratulate Lara Jean? Normally, I’d suggest coordinating, but we haven’t really heard from you - just let me know. Don’t want to step on any toes.”

  
Now, he’d been known to procrastinate before. Even in the height of his Prince-Charming days, he’d put off designing a grand romantic gesture, or finding a perfect gift, or whatever the case might be, until the very last instant. But he’d always been self-aware about that. Waiting for months to come up with an anniversary gift was fine, as long as you knew the anniversary was coming. Never before had he been so utterly blindsided - or baffled. What exactly was he supposed to be congratulating Lara Jean on?

  
Silently, he scanned through their conversations in his mind. It wasn’t finals season, or even midterms, which meant there was no crucial grades that could’ve just been handed down. No big event for one of her clubs, as far as he was aware, though those sorts of things had been slipping past him in recent months. With a less than pleasant taste in his mouth, he even searched back through his texts with Lara Jean, looking for some notable undertaking or important announcement. But there was nothing.

  
She started to rustle against his chest, burrowing just a little closer in those peaceful last moments of half-sleep before one really came to. “Morning, beautiful.” His words came out soft, and tender, and for a second, Peter thought he could see a glimpse of who they’d been before.

  
“Mm...morning.” She couldn’t have been less interested in waking up, only peeking one eye open to look up at him.

  
“Have a good night?” Her hand started to rub mindless little circles into his skin, one of her most entrancing little quirks. There was a time where Peter could get lost in that peaceful loop for hours. For now, though, he had something important to focus on.

  
“More or less. But my pillow was rock hard.” The sleep was still in Lara Jean’s voice, even as it lifted into a teasing note, her hand poking lightly at his muscles. When she fully woke up, he’d know - her body would tense up, she’d pull just a little back, clam up. It hadn’t always been like that, but it was getting harder to imagine it going back with every day it was.

  
“The woes of dating a lacrosse legend. You have it so tough, Lara Jean, how do you ever cope?” He grins, letting himself enjoy their peaceful little bubble for just a little while longer before Margot and her text could pop it.

  
Lara Jean yawns, giving a little stretch but too content in her place to move too much. “I lead a very, very difficult life.” She murmurs, pressing a lazy kiss to Peter’s shoulder. There’s fondness to the action, familiarity that Peter revels in. It’s enough that he thinks he could spend the rest of his life right there, in that instant.

  
But he’d seen The Outsiders, and he’d lived enough life to know that nothing that good could last. It was better not trying to force it. “You do. I hear there’s something I should be congratulating you on, in that very difficult life?” He tries to play it off as light, unfussed, and still, she tenses up against him, entire body going still.

  
Subconsciously, he rolls one ankle, and then the next. There is still a stiffness there he can’t quite explain, and so instead he shrugs it away. “What’s the good news?” He tries again.

  
“It’s, um -” There’s something playing across Lara Jean’s face that he can’t for the life of him place. A realization, maybe, but not one accompanied by anger or joy. It’s frustrating, knowing he can no longer read her like a book, and his eyebrows knit together. If he had to define anything, he’s at least certain there’s an ache to her eyes. “I got into culinary school.” Even with what’s running through her mind and across her features, there’s a distinct joy to her voice.

  
“Culinary school?” Peter echoes, and he knows there is no joy in his voice. There should be - somewhere, in the back of his mind, there is, even. Lara Jean deserved to walk a path that made her happy, and now that the idea was out there, it seemed so incredibly obvious that she was meant for the field that it seemed silly not to have realized it sooner. Yet that realization is far from the forefront of his thoughts.

  
The first real, solid thought he manages it that he understands what was just going through Lara Jean’s mind. They’d both been aware of the growing distance between them, in some vague, abstract sense. It had never seemed so cataclysmic as it did in that instant, though. The chasm separating them had grown so vast that Peter hadn’t even known she was considering culinary school, much less applying and being admitted.

  
He isn’t sure if she had never told him, or if he just hadn’t paid enough attention, and he thinks that might be the problem, to begin with.

  
“Johnson and Wales.” Lara Jean’s voice sounds surprisingly even, considering. They’d grown so much in each other’s absence, and logically, they’d both known that. It just wasn’t until that instant that they realized how far apart the growth had pulled them. “You didn’t know?”

  
“I didn’t know.” He should have.

  
“How could I not have -”

  
“I don’t know.” Maybe he understood why Lara Jean’s voice was so even. Despite the cold shock running his spine, Peter is pretty sure his voice sounds the same way.

  
“You should have -"

  
“I know.”

  
There rest of the conversation is lost on him. He’s aware, physically, when she sits up and puts her head in her hands. At some point he stands, hand running over his mouth in a physical quirk he must have picked up from Dr.Covey. But he’s not processing when her first tears fall, and when he feels his own cheeks stained with wet, it’s hardly even an afterthought. It’s the worst kind of fight or flight - not in the face of danger, but of loss, his mind has gone somewhere else entirely. He doesn’t know it yet, either, but it’s going to stay that way for a very long time.

  
When Peter broke his leg, his doctor told him this: he’d spent the year playing on a ever-increasing series of hairline fractures, traveling down his lower leg. Just one, or even two, and he wouldn’t have had a problem. But he kept going. He ignored the pain and barrelled past the warning signs. In the end, all it took was one misstep, a little too much of his own weight, and it shattered beneath him.

  
He should have learned his lesson the first time. He’d come so close to losing the single most important thing in his life, then. It was a miracle when he stood up to play the next season and his abilities were hardly compromised, the doctor told him as much. He’d been given a second chance.

  
There were no third chances.

  
For all of his numbness to the world around him, Peter’s mind was anything but. There was nothing but pain to be felt. He’d undergone no bodily harm, no physical damage, but the realization of the rift between himself and Lara Jean torturous in it’s own right. It wasn’t even that she’d said something to wound him. But they could both see what had happened. He hadn’t known it until that moment, but he understood fully now. Somewhere, far back in the rear view mirror, was a warning sign, and they’d gone straight past it - right into the point of no return. The damage was done.

  
Peter could finally get his finger on the untranslatable look on Lara Jean’s face. It was impossibly clear, now.

  
That was, he was certain, what a broken heart looked like.

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first To All The Boys Fic, so go easy on me! I know there's probably some grammar or spelling issues, this is unbetad so those mistakes are 100% mine. I might write a happy turn around, I might not. if I do, you’ll hear first on my tumblr ~ madismainblog.


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